Kenneth McMahon
I was a huge reader of Dredd in my teenage years, but this was my first time reading anything since then. A not too terribly interesting collection of stories, but it was a fun re-entry into his world for me.
A tale of superstition vs. medicine in a rural Mexican village slowly emerging into the present, and yet sadly it's completely relevant today in a world of anti-vaccination nutjobs, especially in the scenes where the parents prevent the doctors from accessing their sick children.
The first story “The Part Time Job” by P.D. James is excellent and definitely worth seeking out. But the rest of the stories range from ‘interesting enough, but nothing special' to ‘downright awful' (“A Toothbrush” by H.R.F. Keating being a prime example of the latter)
Much of what I enjoy about Crispin's Gervase Fen stories is missing here (the humour, the literary allusions, etc.) and instead what we get is a series of quick-fire mysteries wrapped up in 5-10 pages. Unfortunately, it reminded me of those Slylock Fox newspaper comic strips where you have to figure out a puzzle given some minimal clues. Sure, the solutions make sense but it's not really all that interesting in the end.
Surprisingly, it's the final story (“Deadlock”) that works best. Surprising because it doesn't feature Fen at all (neither does the preceding story) and also because as Crispin points out in the introduction, it aims more at creating an atmosphere rather than telling an anecdote. At 20 pages long (the longest story in this collection) it allows the mystery to unfold as an actual short story rather than a quick brain teaser.
A mixed bag of short stories. Admittedly, I was going into this book with the knowledge of Lopez as a nature writer, so was disappointed to find only a handful of the stories were in that vein. With that in mind, I'd recommend “Remembering Orchards”, “In The Great Bend of the Souris River” and “The Mappist” as favourites.
I read quite a bit of Agatha Christie as a teenager and was always a fan, but somehow over the years I fell out of those kind of books. I've suddenly felt the urge to begin again, and this was the first one I happened upon, though it turns out it's actually the last Marple book. This doesn't actually play into the narrative at all.
While I was thoroughly engrossed in the story, even though not a whole lot happens, I was let down by the revelation of the killer. I suspected him somewhat throughout (only because of the whole ‘last person you would suspect' cliche) but thought better of it, because it didn't make sense that he would help this couple at all. I mean, why tell them of Lily Kimble's letter to him and her impending visit? He's going to kill her anyway, why not do it discretely?
I also found the Duchess of Malfi quote to be somewhat ridiculous. Now, I knew nothing about the play, but I find it hard to believe that Miss Marple who had just sat through it (and was possibly familiar with it anyway) didn't focus on the quote and it's meaning. In fact, it's not mentioned again at all, until the very end when Marple states that she was stupid for not spotting the significance. She had just watched a play where a brother has his sister killed for marrying a man he doesn't approve of, and she doesn't clue in at all as to how this might be relevant to the case at hand.
Otherwise, I liked it well enough, and am excited to continue catching up with Marple and Poirot.
Far too many characters populate this dark mystery novel. When the reveal comes, it's quite a letdown. It also doesn't make a ton of sense.
Early in the book, Darling visits the police station to advise that his accomplice in murder is missing and would like their assistance in tracking her down. Why on earth would a murderer make himself known to the police?
Otherwise, it was a a decent waste of time.
My now 8 year old son brought this to me to read to him today. It was my favourite book to read to him when he was smaller. A sweet little story with gorgeous illustrations.
Far too many plotlines and a huge amount of side characters. There are about 40-50 and I genuinely lost track of who was who. There's a Lize, a Liz and I think a Lisa too and though I've just finished the book, I'm not even sure if they were different people or not.
Informative and quick read, but I wasn't a fan of the author's writing style at all.
Who knew that Terry Venables co-authored some detective novels in the 70s? I had no idea, so picked this up immediately when I found it at charity book sale. It's a very slight story that holds some interest for its 1970s east end London setting, but the protagonist himself is fairly intolerable. Constantly interjecting himself into conversations with unfunny witticisms, the other characters just ignore him while he thinks he's the smartest kid on the block.
Also contains this bizarre paragraph:
” A beautiful, half-naked girl opened the door. She had black hair, deep brown eyes and the kind of smile that would corrupt an archbishop.
The top half of her white bikini was missing and the bottom half wasn't hiding anything but essentials. Her exquisitely smooth shoulders and boyishly-firm breasts glistened with drops of water.
Unfortunately she was about eight years old. “
I'm always wary of the IDW Americanised version of the Dredd universe, but needn't have worried here as 2000AD regulars Matt Smith and Carl Critchlow take the reins here for an entertaining Anderson thriller.
I thought this was mostly average going and then with about 30 pages left I thought I twigged what the twist was going to be, or at least I came up with a twist and hoped that the book was leading that way (Geoffrey Paradine and Amanda contrive to murder Roger for revenge and his money but make it look like Roger has faked his own death. The body in the water is actually Roger but they had Hubert break into the dentist office in Australia and put Rider's dental charts in Summers' file and make some other paperwork disappear. The police are lead to believe that Roger is on the run after faking his death and go down that investigation, leaving Geoffrey and Amanda to get away scot free.)
There are some scenes that wouldn't make sense with that twist - Amanda breaking up with Geoffrey for one - but I liked my idea better. The reveal of the culprit was disappointing in the end.
Near the very end of the novel, Rendell mentions schadenfreude and I wondered if she wasn't having a playful dig at the reader. I for one was taking pleasure in Gray's slow realisation of what was happening to him. Taking pleasure only because it was obvious that he was being played and his cringeworthy lovesick thoughts had become insufferable. Many times I wanted to reach into the book and shout “Wake up, you idiot!” Still, the punishment did seem spectacularly harsh.
The quite dull first two thirds had me wondering when the mystery might begin, but the final third did win me over in the end. It was well done, however I felt there were a number of plot holes which dragged it down.
- I've read enough detective stories to know that the copper should be asking himself one question after a murder – “Who stands to benefit the most from this?” and so I found it pretty unbelievable that the blame would fall on Gray and the cop wasn't willing to entertain any notions of the wife being involved.
- Wouldn't a perennially broke Gray just phone the vet to give him permission to operate on the dog rather than travelling over from France just to say “go ahead”?
- Potentially not a plot hole, but it wasn't really explained... the letter Gray wrote to Tiny was from June 6th in the previous year. Did Drusilla plan this that far in advance and hope that Gray would contact her a year later, or did she just see her opportunity when he happened to call her again after so many months?
A childhood favourite, however I have to point out an error I noticed this time around. The North Pole section shows a map which the writers claim to be by an English monk, Nicholas of Lynn, in the 14th Century. The map however shows North America on it and that can't be right obviously. It turns out the map is a 1595 creation by Mercator, based on ideas of the Arctic purportedly by the former.
A very good overview of Dublin's history. Not quite sure the framing device of reviewing history building by building quite works as it obviously leads to the story being told out of chronological order and tends to lead to some repetitiveness (here's what happened during 1916 at Dublin Castle; here's what happened in 1916 at Kilmainham, and so on) In addition, there is some poor editing in places though. There are quite a few typos and repetition of phrases that could've been tided up. Still, overall it's a recommended read.
I don't feel it needed three chapters dedicated to the Bre-X scandal in which the protagonist doesn't even appear (I was vaguely familiar with the scandal so it was still fascinating to learn about but it felt like I was reading another book for a while; a brief synopsis would've sufficed) but otherwise an entertaining read.
I wanted to love this. I discovered John Rogers' Youtube channel last year and absolutely adore his videos. They were perfect moments of calmness to watch during turbulent times and they'll often be the last thing I watch before bed to relax myself. The guy just seems like a lovely chap and I like spending time with him and enjoying his enthusiasm. However, the guy in this book is a slightly different version of him. Not any better or worse, just different. Whereas the videos feel somewhat ethereal with their use of Satie and others (even when it's in some industrial wasteland), the book is a more down to earth ramble accompanied by cans of Stella and samosas, which sounds great honestly but offers a different feel. And maybe it's just me much preferring the visual aspect over trying to imagine places I'm not familiar with. There's something really nice about watching the daylight fade towards the end of his walks too.
At almost 400 pages it's overly long, the plot gets a bit complicated and messy, and the ending isn't particularly satisfying (it feels rushed, which is a weird thing to say in a book this long)
However it was fun to read a story set in a Dublin of 1990 with an ongoing bus strike, multiple Bewley's locations, an old guard coming to grips with “the women's movement” but also moving away from the influence of the church.
Written by an Irishman who emigrated to Canada in the 70s, I wonder if these books were ever released in Ireland? I wasn't familiar with them, but I wasn't paying attention too hard either.
Poorly written and edited (someone must've accidentally hit Find>Replace at some point because 1996 suddenly becomes 2006 for a few pages. If you weren't familiar with the period [Veronica Guerin's murder] it would certainly throw the reader for a loop) but otherwise a decent overview of the subject matter, if you're interested in this kind of thing (I'm not particularly, just clearing a gifted book off my bookshelf)
Far too many characters making it hard to keep track of who's who (and it turns out half of them are unnecessary to the plot anyway). On top of that, it all seemed fairly implausible with small town gumshoe Cooperman suddenly hanging out with famous movie stars and investigating a murder suicide he's not even being paid to look into. Disappointing read.
Dull and mostly humorless, which is not exactly what you want in a book full of supposedly humourous anecdotes.
Having left Dublin almost 15 years ago, this was a great reminder of slang I haven't heard in years!